Killing Time In Eternity - Edge Series 4 (25 page)

‘I’m rotten at acting like a lady. And I mean in real life, not on the stage where I’m lousy at everything.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

‘But as a high spirited female of the kind Troy Shaver accused me of trying to be . . .

‘ He shot her a sidelong glance and saw she was eyeing him mischievously. Then she 132

winked, gave a throaty laugh and continued: ‘Get well soon and maybe you’ll find that out for yourself, Edge.’

He grinned and shook his head as the final remnants of his irritation with her drained out of him. ‘High spirited isn’t quite the term for you I reckon.’

‘If you can think of even one word something like that I haven’t been called in my time, it’ll be my turn to be surprised.’

There were even fewer lights to be seen as they headed up to the top end of Main Street, then crossed the bridge on to the Wyoming Turnpike. Nothing else was said until they were out on the open trail, the Kansas flatland lit by a moon that was now fully out from behind widely scattered straggly clouds more than it was darkened behind them. As they rode, comfortable with the unstrained silence between them, Edge was aware that Sue Ellen Spencer glanced at him often. And because of the vaguely salacious nature of the exchange that had just taken place he wondered if her thoughts continued in the same vein as before while she watched him.

But after she spoke his name to capture his overt attention, she dashed his hopes.

‘Shouldn’t we ride faster? Get a little closer to them?’

‘They don’t know they’re being followed, Sue Ellen. Difficult to keep it that way in this kind of flat country.’

‘But what if they’re not going to the Colbert ranch? And we miss seeing where they turn off the trail?

He had returned his attention to the way ahead, surveying a wide general view of the terrain instead of paying close attention to the rain-softened ground where the wheel ruts made by the buggy heading for and then leaving town were clearly defined among much other sign. ‘Where else would they be going?’

‘The old slaughterhouse and cannery, maybe?’

Edge began to pay closer attention to the trail immediately ahead of them. ‘You know what’s out there from the time you and the doc went to deliver a baby?’

‘That’s right: the best part of two years ago. There’s a small bunkhouse where the men who worked on the building project bedded down. And the bigger cannery and slaughterhouse that never did get to be used. A few piles of lumber and iron and such like and some pieces of rusting equipment were lying around. The buildings were derelict, of course. And everything was overgrown with brush.’

Edge shook his head.

‘Something wrong?’

‘Not much. Just getting old, I guess.’

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‘I understand. I’m sure that the older people get, the worse they feel pain. What you said about it being mostly in the mind was utter nonsense, you know. And injuries certainly take longer to heal the older you get.’

‘Don’t remind me.’ He grimaced as he shifted into a more comfortable position in the saddle. ‘But that’s not what I meant, Sue Ellen. I was thinking how I’ve been in Eternity for near four days and I hardly know anything about the place.’

‘Because you didn’t intend to stay? So why should you care?’

‘I didn’t plan to stay at first. But after the killer put me in his line of fire I ought to have done more ground work, Sue Ellen.’

She said with a grin: ‘I read in one of the doc’s medical books that the mind deteriorates a whole lot faster than the physical body. But that doesn’t matter, Edge: so long as I’m close-by to tell you what you need to know.’

Her tone had been as light-hearted as her expression, but now she became concerned by the lengthening silence after he did not respond and she peered intently at him. ‘Hey, don’t take this so seriously. I’m mostly kidding.’

His grin was fleeting and strained. ‘I guess that for a man like me it’s hard to accept a man like me needs constant nursing attention.’

‘Oh, don’t be silly!’ She suddenly thrust out a hand to point at the trail ahead. ‘Hey, look there!’

He peered at the area she gestured to and saw where the wheel ruts imprinted by the buggy on its return journey veered off to the right and disappeared into the prairie grass.

‘See what I mean?’ He was able to generate a lighter note into his voice now. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, I’d probably have missed seeing where they left the trail.’

She matched his attempt at good humour. ‘But if such a beautiful woman as me wasn’t riding with you, I guess you would’ve been paying closer attention to what you should have?’

‘That’s true.’

Although he knew from his ride out to the Colbert spread this morning that the derelict buildings were prominently visible from several points along the trail, Edge nonetheless concentrated his attention on tracking the sign left by their quarry. Which helped to prevent his mind from drifting off toward serious consideration about what he had spoken of so lightly to Sue Ellen. Some five minutes later they reached the crest of a slight, hardly noticeable incline and saw on the north-western horizon the roofs of two buildings, less dark than the surrounding terrain. He thought that in the night they would maybe have looked like rock outcrops to a passing stranger. 134

‘To the left is the cannery and slaughterhouse.’ Sue Ellen pointed toward where the two buildings were sky-lined. ‘The bunkhouse is a little way off to the side.’

No light except for that of the moon showed anywhere and the silence continued to be disturbed only by their slow moving mounts, the setting down of their hooves muffled by the long grass recently disturbed by the buggy and the other horses that had come this way tonight. Some five hundred yards short of the buildings, Edge reined in his mount and Sue Ellen did likewise then instinctively lowered her voice even though they were still far beyond earshot of where they assumed their quarry to be.

‘You see something?’

He shook his head, signalled for her to dismount and did so himself. ‘No. But it seems certain that bunch is up to no good. So the chances are they posted a sentry. One who’s likely to shoot first and only ask questions if we survive. We’re less of a target down from the saddle.’

A horse whinnied in or close to one of the derelict buildings. And the woman shuddered as she stepped up closer to him when he started forward leading his horse by the reins.

‘Are you okay, Sue Ellen?’

‘All at once this isn’t just an exciting adventure, Edge,’ she admitted and swallowed hard.

‘You want to wait here and I’ll take a closer look?’

‘Can I have that pistol of yours? I was just joking back in town, but now – ‘

‘There’s a Winchester in the saddle boot. Can you handle a repeater?’

‘If it’ll keep me from getting killed by some joker like Brady or Hardin or that cretin Baldwin I reckon I could handle a Gatling gun. And I don’t have to tell you I’m not kidding, Edge?’

He did a double take at her as she slid the rifle smoothly out from the boot on his saddle, expertly pumped the action, sloped the weapon to her shoulder and gathered up both sets of reins in her free hand. He said: ‘That was a pretty damn stupid question I asked of such a high spirited female like you, wasn’t it?’

Because of the low level of moonlight, it was difficult to see if the confident smile formed by her mouth line was genuine enough to reach her eyes.

‘Don’t worry about me.’ She nodded toward an untidy heap of what looked like railroad ties a couple of hundred yards to the right. ‘I’ll wait with the horses over there.’

He showed a fleeting grin of encouragement and moved off, vaguely conscious of some slight aches and pains triggered by walking after sitting the saddle for so long. Warned himself that tension acted to dull physical sensations and he better not trust his 135

ability to react with forceful speed to sudden danger. Then he became aware of how hard he was breathing when he reached a ten feet high stack of rusted steel sheets and halted to peer around the side. Saw the familiar buggy with the white canopy parked between the two timber-walled, metal-roofed buildings some thirty yards away. The moonlight reflecting off the shiny newness of the rig emphasised the tumble down condition of the buildings, decrepit from old age and neglect.

There was not an intact pane of glass in any window, sparse areas of surviving paint had peeled and bubbled, doors were hanging off their hinges or missing entirely and there were numerous jagged holes in the roofs. The horse in the buggy’s traces remained unmoving and there was not a sound to be heard in the entire dark world as Edge eased away from the steel roofing sheets, ducked into the waist-high brush and dropped into a crouch. He made few noises as he advanced cautiously through the rain sodden vegetation, but he could not avoid causing the tops of the grasses and more substantial brush to sway: could only hope a sentry would think the motion was due to a gentle stirring by a night breeze. Spent as much time peering toward the buildings as looking at where he was treading and failed to see any sign of human presence. Then he heard sounds from beyond the door-less entrance of the former bunkhouse and identified the noises made by a number of horses as they champed with relish on fodder. Closer, within fifty feet of the front wall of the larger cannery and slaughterhouse, he detected the scent of fresh tobacco smoke in the damp air. Heard a murmuring of unexcited talk and pinpointed this to the other side of the glassless window to the right of the open doorway. He ignored the people in the larger building for the moment and altered the direction of his advance to angle toward the bunkhouse, still staying low in the brush that grew waist-high almost all the way up to the warped and cracked timbers of the wall. Now he smelled horseflesh, reached the doorway and looked inside. In the shafts of moonlight that entered through a half dozen rusted holes in the roof he was able to see ten animals. Free to wander within the confines of the otherwise empty building they were far more interested in two broken open bales of hay spread across the centre of the dirt floor than the stranger was who peered in at them. Five of them were saddled and one of these and two of the others were dark coloured with white blazes which, he allowed with a grimace, didn’t have to signify anything.

‘Seen enough, you nosy bastard?’

The voice was familiar and it was Gus Brady who stepped around the far front corner of the old bunkhouse that tonight served as a stable. The powerfully built man with long, dirty blond hair levelled a double barrel shotgun from his hip and showed a gritted teeth scowl that perhaps warned he itched to use the weapon.

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‘If you really want me to answer that, feller, then no.’ For one crazy moment Edge contemplated a lunge in through the doorway. And an attempt to slide his Colt from the holster before the gun in Brady’s white knuckled grip exploded a blast of flesh renting buckshot at him. But a mild twinge of pain from his bruised back confirmed that the act would surely be suicidal.

Brady’s scowl became a twisted smile of triumph as he commanded: ‘Reach, mister!’

‘Take it easy,’ Edge said. ‘I’m no kind of threat after the pounding you and your buddy gave me.’

Brady thrust the shotgun forward and rasped: ‘I said to reach, you nosy bastard!’

‘That’s the second time you’ve called me that,’ Edge said evenly as he began to comply. ‘Which means you’re not doing any reaching of your own, in a manner of speaking.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?‘

‘A man like you ought to be able to find a lot more cuss words. Are you feeling okay?

You don’t have any kind of headache?’

An expression of half puzzlement-half anger crossed Brady’s weathered and bruised face in response to Edge’s easy tone and quiet smile.

Then the barrel of the Winchester crashed down on the skull of the hapless man and his unconscious form corkscrewed to the ground. Breath spilled in a rasping sigh from his gaping mouth.

Edge murmured with a sympathetic wince: ‘Reckon you will have after you’ve slept on it.’

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CHAPTER • 17

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SUE ELLEN Spencer stepped nervously from around the corner where Brady had
been hidden a few moments earlier and spoke tautly through a tense smile that looked like a permanent fixture on the features of a head of a waxworks figure. ‘I really do know the proper way to handle a Winchester, Edge. But I thought what I just did with it was best for the circumstances?’